a big dark echoing room and a girl trying to fill the silence

Ella Enchanted and stuff

It’s too hot to go to sleep. :( Maybe I should open my window or something. But I’m afraid of someone climbing in my window. >_> Whenever I hear of some guy going in houses and attacking women, I also hear “the victim had her window open because of the heat.” And I think, well dur, I wouldn’t leave my window open while I’m asleep. But … it’s … so … hot. x.x

Oh well. There’s nothing to do online. I’m bored. I was telling myself I’d go on aim, but then I kept putting it off for when I was “less occupied.” And now I’m not going on because it’s so late. ._.;

Anyway. On Saturday I watched Ella Enchanted ’cause my cousin bought the DVD. Blah, stupid book-to-movie ventures. I mean … some are good. *thinks Harry Potter, even though it’s not perfect* But this one was absolutely warped. Did I complain about the “A Wrinkle in Time” movie here? That was actually pretty nice. It stuck to the main part of the book. The only part about Ella Enchanted that was carried to the movie was there was a girl named Ella with a stepmother and stepsisters who went looking for Lucinda to take the spell of obedience off her.

To list my complaints, off the top of my head >b (spoilers ahead, if you haven’t read the very good book):
-Ella liked her dad in the movie. That was stupid. Where was the reason of keeping her obedience a secret?
-The maid/”house fairy” (which sounds an awful lot like “house elf” to me :b) wasn’t such a prominent character. That stinks. They just made her a rotten fairy. x_x
-Her book wasn’t her boyfriend. That was weird. It was supposed to be a regular fairy book that showed you whatever you wanted.
-Lucinda wasn’t the way she really is. She’s supposed to portray herself as the quintessential glittery fairy of the fairy tales, when fairies really look like humans (just with really tiny feet). I dunno. Maybe there wasn’t enough time to show that she was just being an idiot. Nah, she’s just your average black fairy who’s got sass and every other cliche characteristic in the book.
-Hattie, the older stepsister, was made into your regular Popular cheerleader chick. Actually, I rather liked her. ^^ Not the changes, but the person who played her was funny.
-Char … blegh. He’s so much nicer and prince-ly in the book. Okay, this is a better complaint. They put politics in the movie. That was really really really funky. The elves and ogres and giants were segregated and some were forced into slavery and junk. And Char didn’t really get gung-ho about becoming king someday.
-Stupid talking snake. Enough said.
-They took out the part of the book where Ella meets Char at her mother’s funeral. ;.; That was sweet. And the part where they ran away from the party or whatever and found the glass slippers.
-One part in the movie Ella had to tell her best friend they couldn’t be friends anymore (even though they became friends when Ella was sent to finishing school), and she’s not allowed to be friends with an Ayorthaian. They didn’t even explain what Ayorthaian was or anything. They just made the character look Middle Eastern, and that solved the whole non-explanation. x_<
-They added the elf character and the Benny-book-boyfriend character. It made it so much more average. What’s wrong with a girl traveling by herself? Oh, I know:
-They changed Ella completely. She couldn’t have kept the audience’s attention on her own. She wasn’t smart and witty and coool. No, she was just another feminist protester (of all these politics). And she sang. O_o In the book she can’t sing. And they made her feminist. *cries* “Who asked you to save me? I can save myself. I don’t need any help from you.” I thought that was the worst part.
-They also changed the climax. Instead of it being her refusing to marry him (which, I think, is a much better ending; but I don’t know how you’d carry an internal struggle over to a visual media) and breaking the spell, she tried to kill him because his uncle told her to and she was locked up and then she saved him from being poisoned by his uncle and having his uncle take over the throne. Stupid. That was just an imagined reason for why she wouldn’t marry him. I don’t know why they picked up such a mundane, done-before ending. It’s not like you can’t make a smart movie for kids that adults can like (i.e. Harry Potter :b).
-Oh yeah. They took out the part of the book where Char had to go away and he and Ella were writing back and forth and learning about each other. *one of my favorite parts* :b

Just to erase the memory of that movie, I’ve got to read the book again. Aw. Books I have yet to read: finish Raise the Red Lantern; Mary, Called Magdalene; Sabriel; The Haunting of Hill House; Ender (and Bean) series; The Da Vinci Code; and Why Girls are Weird. Oh, poor me. :b

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9 thoughts on “Ella Enchanted and stuff”

The series pretty much takes a very long and depressing nosedive after SOTD… Xenocide is pretty much a giant annoying nosedive and COTM completely collapses on itself. Horrible horrible.. I like to pretend all the books after SOTD were never made.

;_; Why oh why must they change it?! I actually always thought of her curse to obedience as something her body did on its own, or kinda like an impulse (despite that she was able to fight it for a while later on–some part of her still had to perform whatever task she was given), not some magical *bling*. O_o

Well, we all know that print media will go through SOME warpage when it goes on screen, right? :P

All book to movies must be changed… you can have 10 minute scene of just talking in a book buyt can’t do it in the movie.

Of course.. some directors take it to the extreme and the stories are nowhere close to the same. This isn’t always bad I heard… I heard the movie Jurrasic Park was much btter then the book and I prefer Blade Runner over it’s book.